Partisan politics obstruct democracy,report says of dysfunction on the Hill

But don’t just take the word of NDP Leader Jack Layton who has vowed to fix it within 100 days of taking office.

The Liberals agree. “Canadian democracy is in poor health — not terminal, but declining,” the party noted in the red book it released near the start of the campaign. “Canadians still want to be proud of our democratic institutions, but find them often paralyzed in acrimony, personal attacks and partisan gamesmanship.”

John Baird is often the example of an MP who encourages the hyper-partisan excesses in Ottawa

Even Stephen Harper is fed up. “We’re asking Canadian to make the decision,” he said last week during the televised leaders debates. “Do you want to have this kind of bickering?” (The prime minister’s solution? A Conservative majority.)

Now add to those voices a chorus of complaints from some 65 former MPs who blame party leadership for the shift away from constructive politics. Their observations are the subject of It’s My Party: Parliamentary Dysfunction Reconsidered, a new report from Samara, a charitable organization devoted to studying the way citizens engage with democracy.

The MPs, all of whom left office between 2006 and 2008, said the greatest frustrations and embarrassments during their political career came from their own respective political parties.

“MPs said their political parties routinely encouraged overly partisan behaviour in question period, effectively authorizing and encouraging MPs to behave badly,” the report says. “From what the MPs told us, parties also made seemingly arbitrary decision about advancement and discipline within their ranks.”

What’s more, the report says, MPs said their parties interfered directly with Parliamentary work by disrupting committees and enforcing party discipline even on private member’s bills.

“While these interviews were intended to explore the lives of Members of Parliament, much of what we heard actually reflected being a member of a party,” the researchers said. “Indeed, the uneasy relationship between the MPs and the management of their political parties resembled the relationship between the local owner of the national franchise and its corporate management.”

Samara will use its report to advocate for renewal. But, the authors caution, it’s a vicious circle. “Political parties are organizations made up of citizens. Reforming them, therefore, requires citizen participation.”

So while parties need people, they do nothing but turn those people off.

“Disengaged citizens do not want to join parties,” the researchers write. “And so parties are not being renewed or reformed in the direction the citizenry would like.”

Samara suggests revitalization can only take place after an open discussion with

Canadians. “Democracy relies on citizen engagement to thrive,” says Samara co-founder and chair Michael MacMillan. “But if the public face of politics embarrasses our MPs, is it any wonder that citizens turn away?”

Alison Loat, Samara co-founder and executive director, says it’s time for leaders to step up. “If parties play a role in the current challenges facing Canadian politics, then they have role to play in helping to overcome them,” she said.